Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Summary:

Students growing up in today’s society with fast paced, high tech gadgetry to entertain and educate are known as Digital Natives. Those who did not grow up surrounded by the technology and lingo of today are known as Digital Immigrants. Digital Natives learn and respond much differently to traditional methods of teaching than Digital Immigrants do and to successfully educate Digital Natives, educators must adapt their teaching style to meet the needs of this new type of learner. Some of the ways to adapt to teaching Digital Native includes teachers “communicating in the language and style of their students”. (Prensky, 4, 2001), teaching both “legacy” content such as reading, wiring, math, etc. and “future” content like technology. The challenge here is asking Digital Immigrants to teach this to Digital Native. They wonder how can this best be done. One suggestion is to invent video games to teach new technologies. The author argues that we need to invent these Digital Native methodologies for all subject areas and that it’s time that Digital Immigrants must make changes with the support of their administrators.

Reaction:

I thought that this was a well-written and highly useful article about how to become more effective at reaching all learners. The suggestions made by the author about learning to use the technology to teach technology or other “legacy” subjects was a great suggestion that I easily integrated into my own teaching. I did wonder as I was reading this article, however, if perhaps the content resonated with me because I myself am a Digital Native. If I were a Digital Immigrant, would I feel differently? Would I have more difficulty imagining myself integrating technologies into my teaching? Most likely. However, for me this article makes a great point that it’s time to be more creative and to utilize the abilities of our students to multi-task, navigate technologies and understand technological concepts in order to help them achieve a greater level of understanding in all subject areas.

Prensky, M. (2007). Digital natives, digital immigrants. In J. Hirschbuhl & J. Kelley (Eds.), Computers in education (2-4). Dubuque, IA: McGraw Hill.